Thing One: Look for me soon (this week?  next?) as a regular contributor to Unleaded – Fuel for Writers, a blog that is slowly turning into a group blog for the Cat Vacuuming Society, and is going to be a major focus of our new cross promotional plans.  These contributions will include both blog posts and related podcast episodes, with all posts cross linked back here when I make them.  My focus will be on my experiences writing near future science fiction, my problems with horror, and my experiences playing with new channels of self promotion.  To that end…

Thing Two: I announced a few months back my plan to start serializing my first novel, Rust.  And then I never did.  Did you notice that?  Of course you didn’t, because no one reads this blog.  Seriously, post a reply and tell me I’m wrong!  Anyway, I’m looking at two new channels of digital distribution, one which will happen quite earlier than the other.  First up will be Rust’s availability on Kindle, which I hope will happen within the week.  Right now I’m doing a quick editing pass that involves searching for all the bugaboo words and phrases I used to over use.  Such as “started” and “had been” and “a bit” and “seemed”.  This process had been starting to seem like a bit of a bad idea for awhile, but I’ve made it through most of them.  Had is the biggie, since it is a legitimate word so often, but not nearly as often as I used it.  The other distribution I’m looking at is podiobooking Rust.  Right now I haven’t even started recording, and I’m not likely to start serializing the podcast until at least half the chapters are in the can.  Still, I’m working on my setup and my delivery, so look for that in the future.

This Three: I’m working on a few ways to self promote myself, especially with Balticon fast approaching.  First idea is something I played with a few years ago, the idea of publishing a 1000-1500 word story as a little eight page booklet, printed on just one sheet of paper and clipped and folded up to a book form.  Second idea is something newer: QR codes.  Not sure if everyone who is reading this (seriously, post a reply, let me know you’re out there) knows what these are, but they’re two dimensional barcodes that can hold up to 250 characters of information and can be read by smartphones with cameras and the right application.  The best of these apps will automatically recognize links.  They can be used for business cards to put a lot of information on them, including a full range of phone numbers, email addresses, and web sites.  I’m planning on using them on business sized cards, with both some human-readable text, and some teasers.  For example, a QR Code after the break:

Scanned and decoded it reads: “A human for a human’s work! –King Ludd. Rust, a steampunk murder mystery by DL Thurston.  Available now for the Kindle, coming soon to podiobook.  http://DLThurston.com/blog”.  I’m still working on exactly what to include, I still have a good 90 characters left, but I’m happy.  It’s got a key phrase from the book, identifies the book, advertises its new availability on Kindle, and provides a link to this blog.  I might also include a price point, once I figure one out.

Yes, I see the potential irony in using a smartphone technology to spread a message used by Luddites in the book.  The idea is to catch people’s eyes in a different way, and I hope this succeeds in doing so.

Capclave:  Seriously, a great place to be a writer and just to hang out.  This will be an early trial for CVS 2.0, but will not yet be the official coming out party.  Still, several of us are talking about being there, and at just $55 head, it’s a rather good value.  Last year I went to both World Fantasy and Capclave, and would you believe it’s Capclave I got more out of?  Well believe it.

Nanowrimo: This is when I’ll be doing a lot of work on actually writing Capsule.  There’s something about Nanowrimo that just gets me writing in a way that is hard to duplicate at other times in the year.  I’ve been victorious four out of the last 5 years.

Balticon:  When you see us talking 2.0, this is what it’s about.  This is where several CVS members have some name and face recognition, and this is going to be the big coming out party.  But the time Balticon rolls around, I really am hoping to have a first draft of Capsule, and at least a good chunk of the second draft of Conqueror Worm.

Renee puts the mantra of 2.0 perfectly in her post:  “I’m tired of being a fan. I’m tired of being a wannabe writer. And I’m ready to do something about it.”

9 months until Balticon 2010.  Perfect amount of time to allow our ideas to gestate.

Okay, I apologize for that joke.

I need to know where I’m going.  I need a map.  So, thus, I need to start by making one.

I’m going to attempt a process called the Snowflake Method, as it feels very organic to the way I approach things, and lets me be as fiddly as detailed as I want to be before I get started.  It’ll be a modified approach, I know, but it’s at least some way to get my brain to start thinking in terms of breaking the story down into workable chunks, and then writing them.

The novel, I’ve mentioned it here, and at CVS (2.0 in the house) is called Capsule.  Step one of the snowflake is a sentence of no more than 15 words meant to provide the highest level most abstract view of the novel.  Think of it as opening Google Earth and seeing the globe just sitting there, waiting to be zoomed in on.  It’s earth, there’s no question, but there is so much more hiding that needs to be explored.

A greusome murder forces a detective to explore the horrific underbelly of a utopic future.

Fifteen words exactly.  Let’s do this thing.

I might be trying to hard.  CVS 2.0 has got me excited, but perhaps it’s gotten me a little too excited, and has me pushing myself beyond comfort limits.  That’s why I’m hoping the vacation will help, just get completely out of my head.  The laptop will go along, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to get anything written.  At the same time, I don’t want to leave it behind just to have inspiration hit one evening after dinner while just lounging in a hotel room.

I’ve been listening to the Drabblecast lately, enjoying its slight (or sometimes extreme) quirkiness, and it’s got me itching to try some drabbles, which might be good for me.  Get me writing and working on something with such a short distance between starting and payoff.  I’ve always been dismissive of drabbles in the past, perhaps because my only previous association with them was at various fan fiction sites a decade ago when I would actually visit fan fiction sites, usually trolling for the worst of the worst.  I suppose if I shouldn’t judge short stories by fan fic, I shouldn’t judge drabbles by fan fic drabbles.  I’ve actually been rather impressed at how people can set a tone, mood, characters, and get a resolution, all in fewer words than are likely to end up in this paragraph.  Several of my thing-a-week concepts I never really liked cause they ended up all broody and naval-gazing probably because I was trying to take a 100-word concept and turn it into a 3000-word story.

I’m also strongly considering sending Sleep to them.  I don’t know if it’ll work in audio format, but I do feel it’s a stylistic fit, and it’s not my job to reject stories for them.

If I like them, I’ll post some here.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I’ve also discovered, through his letters and other non-fiction writing, that a certain character of mine who shall remain nameless was a racist, xenophobic luddite.  And another character of mine is a Slavic inventor.  Which I’ve also got to take care of this draft.  And a certain horrific otherworldly realm of horrors and nightmares that shall remain nameless is presented as, if anything, silly in the first draft.  I always knew that was the problem, and was kind of hoping that would be the focuse of my second draft, reworking those sections, but with the need to potentially change the whole interpersonal dynamic between two characters…this is going to be a hell of an edit.

But really, I’ve gotten almost nowhere, and for that I blame the fact that I’m running off to get married in two weeks (my god, is it only two weeks?) and just haven’t had my mind in the game.  Hopefully when I get back, I’ll be more focused, and more ready to really tackle CVS 2.0 and the big editing pass on Conqueror Worm.

Oh, finally got my Writers of the Future rejection for Belmeth, a few weeks later than usual and after the submission deadline, but I didn’t have anything else ready to go anyway.  What with focusing on Conqueror Worm, my short story career right now will probably be to just cycle Belmeth, Sleep, and Div0 to a few different markets, possibly to include Escape and Pseudopod, which someone got me hooked on (though good timing, since my favorite radio station just got taken away, screw you very much CBS Radio).  The same someone that really needs to make a blog post about her vision for CVS 2.0, since she’s one of the ones who started it, dagnabbit.

Now, I can already hear you.  But David, you’re saying, don’t you normally work an eight hour day?  Part of the goal will be to ramp up.  January: 6 hours.  Feb: 6.5 hours.  By May I’ll be taking an 8 hours writing day.  It’s something I’m going to have to get used to, but it’s something I want to get used to.

Follow up to yesterday: submission is safely being whisked off towards Los Angeles.